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People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create (or attempt to create) surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis.

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Review

"Simulating Minds is an impressive achievement. It combines rich scholarship with clear, lively, and original argument to give us by far the best and most comprehensive defense of the simulation theory perspective that has been produced to date. Goldman's book is essential reading for all philosophers and empirical researchers interested in mindreading."--Stephen Stich, Rutgers University

"Alvin Goldman's Simulating Minds provides a superb and thought-provoking account of mind reading. Simulating Minds bridges philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience, combining scholarly depth with a brilliant style. This is not only the definitive book on simulation theory but also a must-read for all people interested in knowing more about what it means to be human."--Vittorio Gallese, Universita' di Parma

"Alvin Goldman is a distinguished epistemologist. For several years he has also been one of the leading advocates of the simulation theory of human mindreading. Goldman's approach is hybrid and highly interdisciplinary. It gives a central, though by no means exclusive, role to mental simulation. Goldman makes sense of an impressive amount of empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social psychology. This evidence enables him to make a convincing case for the importance of mental simulation in both low-level and high-level tasks of third-person mindreading. In addition, Goldman offers his own account of first-person mindreading. This book has been awaited for some time: it brilliantly illustrates how a philosopher can contribute to an area that is currently subjected to much cognitive scientific investigation by sharpening the basic concepts involved." --Pierre Jacob, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris

"This impressive book is sufficiently clear and accessible to serve as an introduction to simulation theory yet is full of new ideas. It is very clearly the work of a philosopher yet provides an extraordinarily informative guide to the relevant literature in cognitive science and neuroscience. Indeed, for everyone who is interested in our ability to understand each other as minded creatures, Simulating Minds is essential reading."--Martin Davies, Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy, University of Oxford

"This superb book richly displays Goldman's virtues as a philosopher--it's clear, engaging, philosophically sensitive, and scrupulously well-informed about the science. It is also the most powerful statement of simulation theory to date."--Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona

"Simulating Minds is an impressive achievement. It combines rich scholarship with clear, lively, and original argument to give us by far the best and most comprehensive defense of the simulation theory perspective that has been produced to date. Goldman's book is essential reading for all philosophers and empirical researchers interested in mindreading."--Stephen Stich, Rutgers University

"Alvin Goldman's Simulating Minds provides a superb and thought-provoking account of mind reading. Simulating Minds bridges philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience, combining scholarly depth with a brilliant style. This is not only the definitive book on simulation theory but also a must-read for all people interested in knowing more about what it means to be human."--Vittorio Gallese, Universita' di Parma

"Alvin Goldman is a distinguished epistemologist. For several years he has also been one of the leading advocates of the simulation theory of human mindreading. Goldman's approach is hybrid and highly interdisciplinary. It gives a central, though by no means exclusive, role to mental simulation. Goldman makes sense of an impressive amount of empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social psychology. This evidence enables him to make a convincing case for the importance of mental simulation in both low-level and high-level tasks of third-person mindreading. In addition, Goldman offers his own account of first-person mindreading. This book has been awaited for some time: it brilliantly illustrates how a philosopher can contribute to an area that is currently subjected to much cognitive scientific investigation by sharpening the basic concepts involved." --Pierre Jacob, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris

"This impressive book is sufficiently clear and accessible to serve as an introduction to simulation theory yet is full of new ideas. It is very clearly the work of a philosopher yet provides an extraordinarily informative guide to the relevant literature in cognitive science and neuroscience. Indeed, for everyone who is interested in our ability to understand each other as minded creatures, Simulating Minds is essential reading."--Martin Davies, Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy, University of Oxford

"This superb book richly displays Goldman's virtues as a philosopher--it's clear, engaging, philosophically sensitive, and scrupulously well-informed about the science. It is also the most powerful statement of simulation theory to date."--Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona

"Goldman's knowledge and drawing together of the field is impressive and there is certainly a great deal to be learned from this book..."--Minds & Machines

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4 reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

A thorough inquiry into mental simulation theorySept. 19 2009

By
Diego Azeta
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

In «Simulating Minds», his ninth and latest book, Alvin Goldman provides a comprehensive survey of the principal theories devised to explain the mind's ability to ascribe mental states to other minds as well as to itself. Minds --human and to all appearances those of other intelligent fellow creatures-- possess the capability not only of having mental states (things such as notions, emotions and sensations) but of conceiving that other individuals or organisms are equally capable of having their own mental states. This more complex, second-order activity is referred to in psychology as mentalizing or mindreading.

Mindreading seems to be essential for the development and functioning of complex social organization. The question arises as to how the brain accomplishes mindreading. Goldman discusses several variants of the three main competing views that purport to explain the neurocognitive processes thought to underlie mindreading: theorizing, rationalizing, and simulating. The theorizing approach posits that people employ naïve (folk psychology) theories to guide them in assessing what others think or mentally experience. People then impute mental states to others based on those naïve theories. The rationalizing approach states that people assume others are as rational as they themselves are and thus infer the other person's mental contents by an exercise of rational deduction. The simulation approach holds that people try to replicate (emulate) the target's mental states in their own mind based on perceived behavioral cues and their own prior experiences. Specifically, the mind reader deploys his or her emotive and cognitive apparatus to simulate the target's perceived (or perhaps, imagined) situation and thus intuitively feel what the target should (or would) be experiencing. "Thus," asserts Goldman, "mindreading is an extended form of empathy."

Goldman then provides a very clear articulation of the theoretical construct of simulation followed by discussions of simulation theory's principal rivals: rationality theory, child-scientist theory, and modularity theory. He then conducts in-depth analyses of the hybrid simulation model he favors (one that admits a role for theorizing, although secondary to the default simulation approach). He supports his position with a wide range of evidence, including well-replicated findings from the neuroscience literature. The book closes with an examination of the relationship between simulational propensities and the distinctively social traits that characterize human experience.

This book provides an excellent account of simulation theory as well as the competing perspectives. It should be of major interest to researchers in philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience, and social psychology. Lay readers with a strong interest in cognitive science should also find the book a worthwhile read given the clarity and accessibility of the exposition.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

An excellent example of indisciplinary work in philosophy and psychologyJune 21 2006

By
Anthony I. Jack
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover

In this book Alvin Goldman develops a highly significant thesis - an account of how we understand other minds. This thesis is significant not just because it addresses classical philosophical problems, but also because it has serious implications for scientific research.

Alvin Goldman is a highly accomplished philosopher. In this book he ventures into new waters - surveying research in psychology and neuroscience. He grasps the empirical literature and weighs the evidence with a competence that matches that of a highly accomplished scientist. In doing so he puts most other 'interdisciplinary' philosophers to shame.

This is an exemplary work of both philosophy and theoretical psychology. This work sets an example that can and should serve as a model for modern, interdisciplinary, philosophy of mind.

Pretty heavyFeb. 20 2014

By
Patricia L. Conway
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Kindle Edition
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I was not prepared to discover how truly stupid I am. I have been trying to read this wonderful book but I am just too dense to understand most of it.